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Vlad the Inhaler's avatar

Great piece! As a parent of three kids, two of whom are leaving the most turbulent phase of the teen years and one of whom is entering, I can't tell you how much this subject, and the Times story, affected me. I bet if you surveyed all of the donors to, say, the Human Rights Campaign who also have kids, roughly 99% of them would be disturbed, if not outraged, by the thought that a school would actively HELP their child hide something important from their parents. I'm going to limit myself to a few thoughts form a parents' perspective:

1) Look, I'm a graduate of public schools, a believer in public schools, and a supporter of public schools. My wife and I picked where we currently live in large part because it has a good public school system, because we both thought it was important to send our kids to public schools. We've been pretty happy with the education our kids have gotten and certainly don't regret our choice. And let me tell you: we would NEVER trust those teachers, or administrators, to make decisions like this for our kids. We'd listen to their advice, but they don't know our kids nearly as well as we do and, honestly, the vast majority of them just aren't qualified to be substituting their judgment for ours on this issue, any more than they are on the question whether our kids should go to a therapist. It's a real problem the Ed schools seem to be teaching younger teachers that it's fine for them to displace kids' parents on anything LGBTQ-related.

2) A common reaction from the activist community, seen in both the article and on Twitter yesterday, was "any kid who wants to hide this from their parent obviously has a good reason to do so." And, my God . . . were you never a teen? Have you never met a teen? A typical teen developmental stage is withdrawing from their parents emotionally. This is often accompanied by an incorrect belief that their parents wouldn't understand, or approve, or whatever; the classic bubbly and happy 12 year-old who turns into a sullen and resentful 14 year-old who only grunts at her parents. This has NOTHING to do with the parents in many cases; it's a normal psychological stage, a way the kids build independence. To simply assume that teens would only lie to their parents, or want to avoid difficult conversations with their parents, only if they had good cause to do so is insane.

3) Which leads to the big problem with the "lie to the parents" approach that I'm not seeing many people discuss: schools might be irrevocably damaging parent-child relationships that would otherwise be healthy. Most sullen and resentful 14 year-olds snap out of it by the time they're 17 or so, and rebuild their relationship with their parents on a more adult and sustainable emotional footing. But with other adults in their lives encouraging them to just cut their parents out? That can do lasting damage. That is, seriously, how cults work. It's nuts to me that people are being so cavalier about the possibility of doing real damage to family relationships like this.

4) As for the "outing the gay" comparison: another problem with it is that schools aren't really involved in the sex life of a gay kid, whereas the whole issue here is that schools are actively "transing" the kids in question. So the analogy isn't "should schools who know a kid is gay tell his parents?" It's "should schools who know a kid is gay make a classroom available for him to mess around with his boyfriend after school, and then tell the parents that the kid was really at band practice" or something like that.

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drosophilist's avatar

"Gender identity refers to a person’s internal sense of being male, female or something else"

I'm sorry if this gives offense, but I'm curious what others think of this: I truly don't understand the concept of "internal sense of being male, female or something else."

I know I'm a woman for obvious anatomical reasons, but I don't have an "internal sense of being female." As a commenter on another thread said, "I don't know what it's like to be a woman; I only know what it's like to be me."

Now, an internal sense of being a woman makes a lot more sense in a society with rigid gender roles: "I want to do x (go to university, join the military, be a priest, own property in my own name), but only men are allowed to do x. I must be a man!" But our society, with a few exceptions, just isn't like that. Let's look at some examples from my life right now. Would I still be able to do these things if I were a man?

Work as a scientist --> check

Practice a martial art --> check

Watch "Love, Actually" --> My husband is a man, and he openly and unashamedly loves this movie. It's adorable. So, check.

Cook delicious food --> check

Call my parents and tell them I love them --> check

Be a loving parent to my son --> He would call me Daddy rather than Mommy, but other than that, check.

Comment on Substack threads --> check

I mean, of course I get that some things (especially pertaining to fashion/makeup/hairstyle) continue to be strongly associated with a given gender in our culture, but is this an argument for "gender identity" or for broadening our idea of gender norms? Should we, as a society, tend toward "If you are biologically male but want to wear makeup, you must be trans or nonbinary" or "Some men want to wear makeup and still remain men, and that's okay"?

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